1 00:00:00,049 --> 00:00:02,619 It's with a heavy heart that we share this message with you. 2 00:00:02,729 --> 00:00:05,569 After years of love and care poured into this little shop, 3 00:00:05,599 --> 00:00:07,189 it's time for us to close. 4 00:00:07,679 --> 00:00:10,819 A heartfelt message from a couple who are closing their boutique doors 5 00:00:10,819 --> 00:00:14,889 with one final sale, ready to focus on their new role as grandparents. 6 00:00:15,219 --> 00:00:18,379 At first glance, everything looks genuine — the emotional farewell, 7 00:00:18,590 --> 00:00:22,399 the photo of the owners — but on second glance, things don't add up. 8 00:00:22,459 --> 00:00:26,059 Despite the title referencing a local town, the shipping details 9 00:00:26,060 --> 00:00:29,209 note that orders are dispatched from their warehouse in Central Asia. 10 00:00:29,590 --> 00:00:32,869 A closer look at the photo suggests the smoothness and uniformity 11 00:00:32,889 --> 00:00:34,539 of an AI-generated image. 12 00:00:34,960 --> 00:00:39,480 As I dug further, I realised I hadn't just stumbled across one fake retailer. 13 00:00:39,510 --> 00:00:42,810 I'd stumbled across a whole new business model. 14 00:00:43,204 --> 00:00:44,704 But this is what really interested me. 15 00:00:44,924 --> 00:00:48,594 What happens to all the genuine independent retailers when customers 16 00:00:48,674 --> 00:00:50,954 stop trusting what they see online? 17 00:01:04,826 --> 00:01:07,056 Ghost stores are no longer unusual. 18 00:01:07,056 --> 00:01:11,356 What I am describing at the beginning of this episode is what consumer protection 19 00:01:11,356 --> 00:01:14,266 organisations refer to as a ghost store. 20 00:01:14,556 --> 00:01:18,456 It is an e-commerce website that is set up usually specifically to look 21 00:01:18,456 --> 00:01:20,646 like a local independent retailer. 22 00:01:20,886 --> 00:01:23,586 It will have the name of the town in the URL. 23 00:01:23,849 --> 00:01:28,006 It will feature photographs or AI- generated photographs of owners 24 00:01:28,006 --> 00:01:33,796 that do not exist, that are supposedly all from one location or another. 25 00:01:34,157 --> 00:01:35,047 They are set up. 26 00:01:35,387 --> 00:01:36,467 They start trading. 27 00:01:36,477 --> 00:01:41,907 They usually run huge discounts disguised as closing down sales, and then they 28 00:01:41,907 --> 00:01:47,227 disappear, leaving nothing behind other than disgruntled reviews on platforms 29 00:01:47,227 --> 00:01:50,835 like Trustpilot, where you can see clearly that customers have had a terrible 30 00:01:50,835 --> 00:01:54,525 experience with low-quality products that took a really long time to arrive. 31 00:01:54,971 --> 00:01:58,931 And that they were unable to return without paying high fees. 32 00:01:59,101 --> 00:02:02,771 And basically, once those reviews have piled up enough that people 33 00:02:02,781 --> 00:02:06,491 stop purchasing from this website, they just shut it down, and 34 00:02:06,491 --> 00:02:07,811 then they start up another one. 35 00:02:08,409 --> 00:02:13,859 And so they are effective when they prey on people who are not paying quite 36 00:02:13,859 --> 00:02:17,719 close enough attention or maybe have just come across this website before the 37 00:02:17,729 --> 00:02:19,989 terrible reviews have started racking up. 38 00:02:20,099 --> 00:02:25,049 And AI has accelerated them because it's now so quick and 39 00:02:25,049 --> 00:02:27,649 easy to get these websites set up. 40 00:02:28,049 --> 00:02:31,839 To help me understand more about this phenomenon, I spoke to Chris Emmins, 41 00:02:32,129 --> 00:02:36,669 founder and CEO of KwikChex, a consumer protection organisation. 42 00:02:37,560 --> 00:02:39,360 I don't think “prevalent” gets near it. 43 00:02:39,403 --> 00:02:42,143 Not even “pervasive” gets near it, to be honest. 44 00:02:42,249 --> 00:02:45,357 It's a part of the world we live in now, if you like. 45 00:02:45,357 --> 00:02:47,847 I mean, it is absolutely everywhere. 46 00:02:48,287 --> 00:02:48,667 Yeah. 47 00:02:49,112 --> 00:02:52,142 We're expert in this, and we can't even figure 48 00:02:52,142 --> 00:02:53,722 out quite what the numbers are. 49 00:02:54,122 --> 00:02:55,032 It's extraordinary. 50 00:02:55,232 --> 00:02:57,802 And it doesn't really matter where we look, you know, because we're 51 00:02:57,862 --> 00:02:59,342 detecting things all the time. 52 00:02:59,662 --> 00:02:59,752 Mm. 53 00:02:59,882 --> 00:03:04,172 So if we look at online reviews, if we look at a company registration 54 00:03:04,192 --> 00:03:09,779 resource like Companies House, or obviously social media, it's always there. 55 00:03:09,799 --> 00:03:12,519 We can find them within seconds, frankly. 56 00:03:12,669 --> 00:03:15,629 So it becomes a question of, well, two things really. 57 00:03:16,019 --> 00:03:17,749 I mean, just how much is out there. 58 00:03:17,789 --> 00:03:20,058 We know pretty much what that is. 59 00:03:20,078 --> 00:03:24,213 It's thousands and thousands of businesses that are fraudulent or certainly 60 00:03:24,403 --> 00:03:26,133 dishonest in some form or another. 61 00:03:26,286 --> 00:03:30,266 In the world we live in, it's just so darn easy and cheap 62 00:03:30,356 --> 00:03:30,656 Mm. 63 00:03:30,676 --> 00:03:31,586 to do these things. 64 00:03:31,636 --> 00:03:32,146 Yeah. 65 00:03:32,146 --> 00:03:35,566 They now have AI on their side, of course. 66 00:03:35,586 --> 00:03:36,156 Yeah. 67 00:03:36,206 --> 00:03:40,086 Which means that a website can go up, you know, pretty much within an hour. 68 00:03:40,432 --> 00:03:42,832 They could have drawn down all the images from other sites. 69 00:03:42,832 --> 00:03:43,981 I mean, we see that all the time. 70 00:03:44,061 --> 00:03:44,141 Yeah. 71 00:03:44,242 --> 00:03:46,956 Obviously, you can do a reverse image search, as I'm 72 00:03:47,106 --> 00:03:48,246 sure you've looked at. 73 00:03:48,270 --> 00:03:51,670 And it will identify it came from another site, et cetera, et cetera. 74 00:03:51,920 --> 00:03:54,340 But nevertheless, people do get drawn into that. 75 00:03:54,603 --> 00:03:59,474 And the perpetrators aren't all silly enough to 76 00:03:59,804 --> 00:04:04,692 have the price at such a low level that it's a red flag. 77 00:04:04,711 --> 00:04:08,924 The better ones could use a sale, for example, and say, 78 00:04:08,934 --> 00:04:09,524 Yeah. 79 00:04:09,674 --> 00:04:13,874 “Sale now,” and it's still only 15 or 20% cheaper, so it 80 00:04:13,874 --> 00:04:16,244 doesn't really alert people. 81 00:04:16,435 --> 00:04:19,614 So much more is needed, in fact, to cope with this. 82 00:04:19,864 --> 00:04:23,874 There is another element as well, which KwikChex has always been 83 00:04:23,884 --> 00:04:28,784 interested in and assisted with, and that is one of the unfortunate 84 00:04:28,784 --> 00:04:33,764 side effects of this sort of conduct, and the fact it's so pervasive, is 85 00:04:33,764 --> 00:04:38,004 that it creates hurdles and hindrances for many legitimate businesses 86 00:04:38,004 --> 00:04:40,274 in the independent sector 87 00:04:40,424 --> 00:04:40,724 Yeah. 88 00:04:40,724 --> 00:04:41,464 particularly. 89 00:04:41,934 --> 00:04:46,304 Because I see a lot of advice saying “a company 90 00:04:46,304 --> 00:04:50,074 you've never heard of” is often contained within the advice. 91 00:04:50,450 --> 00:04:54,670 So what is the impact on the consumer now that they're really learning 92 00:04:54,700 --> 00:04:57,100 that they can't believe their eyes? 93 00:04:57,670 --> 00:05:02,200 So research by the user-generated content platform 94 00:05:02,240 --> 00:05:08,150 Bazaarvoice has shown that 97% of consumers no longer rely on one source 95 00:05:08,230 --> 00:05:09,640 anymore when they're purchasing. 96 00:05:09,850 --> 00:05:13,200 That means that 97% of people will not just go straight to 97 00:05:13,200 --> 00:05:14,960 a website and make a purchase. 98 00:05:14,990 --> 00:05:17,350 They are cross-referencing everything. 99 00:05:17,620 --> 00:05:18,940 They're looking at the website. 100 00:05:18,980 --> 00:05:23,130 They're looking on Instagram to see what social media presence a company has. 101 00:05:23,420 --> 00:05:24,580 They're looking at reviews. 102 00:05:24,620 --> 00:05:25,380 They're checking TikTok. 103 00:05:26,090 --> 00:05:30,240 They're going on Reddit and searching what people's experiences are like, 104 00:05:30,450 --> 00:05:34,170 and maybe they're googling for information about this company as well. 105 00:05:34,190 --> 00:05:35,630 This isn't paranoia. 106 00:05:35,930 --> 00:05:37,460 This is adaptation. 107 00:05:37,640 --> 00:05:40,720 I spoke to Doug Straton, the chief marketing officer of 108 00:05:40,720 --> 00:05:43,210 Bazaarvoice, who explains more. 109 00:05:43,743 --> 00:05:46,943 I think the big difference now in terms of multi-source 110 00:05:46,953 --> 00:05:51,993 is, the digital environment has enabled shopping to 111 00:05:51,993 --> 00:05:53,463 take place pretty much anywhere. 112 00:05:53,463 --> 00:05:56,043 And so there's an element of what we used to call merchandising that 113 00:05:56,043 --> 00:05:59,713 happens in social environments, broader media environments, not 114 00:05:59,713 --> 00:06:02,683 just on a product description page within the retail environment. 115 00:06:02,844 --> 00:06:07,744 And people don't engage or spend as much time in any one place for very long. 116 00:06:07,754 --> 00:06:09,404 They're not captured, in other words. 117 00:06:10,024 --> 00:06:14,574 And so their ability to kind of see the same message and the same merchandising 118 00:06:14,764 --> 00:06:17,701 where it used to be just message and then drive them down the funnel, now the 119 00:06:17,701 --> 00:06:20,740 message and the merchandising is happening upper funnel, mid-funnel, and 120 00:06:20,889 --> 00:06:22,699 finally, you know, true lower funnel. 121 00:06:23,049 --> 00:06:24,689 And I think that's the big difference. 122 00:06:24,689 --> 00:06:29,209 It's both the way they're receiving the messages, the way we're merchandising 123 00:06:29,209 --> 00:06:34,009 now in the physical and digital environments, and ultimately, the more 124 00:06:34,009 --> 00:06:37,069 times you can hit people with, like, this is the message and then here 125 00:06:37,069 --> 00:06:41,185 are the proof points that bolster the proposition of any given brand, product, 126 00:06:41,185 --> 00:06:46,105 or service, that just drives the behaviour further, essentially. 127 00:06:46,785 --> 00:06:49,815 So imagine someone has never heard of your business. 128 00:06:50,075 --> 00:06:53,505 It was interesting that Chris Emmins mentioned that one of the pieces of 129 00:06:53,505 --> 00:06:58,615 advice that is given to consumers to try and combat these ghost stores 130 00:06:58,845 --> 00:07:02,555 is they ask consumers to think about and consider if they have 131 00:07:02,585 --> 00:07:04,325 even heard of this company before. 132 00:07:04,395 --> 00:07:07,235 Now, this is really difficult if you're a small business because 133 00:07:07,235 --> 00:07:11,085 the vast majority of people in this world have not heard of you before. 134 00:07:11,455 --> 00:07:16,665 So imagine that you've got a consumer who's coming to you who has been warned 135 00:07:16,725 --> 00:07:21,315 to be wary of businesses that they've not heard of before, and they come across 136 00:07:21,315 --> 00:07:26,075 your ad or they come across a mention of you and they want to know, are you real? 137 00:07:26,145 --> 00:07:27,205 Are you a real person? 138 00:07:27,205 --> 00:07:31,215 Which seems like a ridiculous question that you have to answer in 2026, but this 139 00:07:31,225 --> 00:07:33,245 is the mindset that the consumer is in. 140 00:07:33,265 --> 00:07:38,705 So what would they find if they went to your website or on your social media? 141 00:07:38,925 --> 00:07:40,785 Would they see you as the founder? 142 00:07:41,015 --> 00:07:43,035 Would they see reviews that they could read? 143 00:07:43,315 --> 00:07:46,195 Do you have an active social media presence of some sort? 144 00:07:46,525 --> 00:07:50,025 Do you have a Google My Business profile that they can reference? 145 00:07:50,295 --> 00:07:52,715 Is there any press about you, about the business? 146 00:07:52,765 --> 00:07:54,695 Are there any behind-the-scenes pictures? 147 00:07:55,265 --> 00:08:00,211 Are there testimonials or pictures of your community or your customers? 148 00:08:00,701 --> 00:08:03,371 Or is it just a Shopify website? 149 00:08:04,371 --> 00:08:06,641 Trust isn't built on one page anymore. 150 00:08:06,651 --> 00:08:08,581 It's built through consistency. 151 00:08:08,801 --> 00:08:11,631 In addition, if you have got a physical store, make sure there are 152 00:08:11,631 --> 00:08:14,841 pictures of that on your website because that is a big differentiator. 153 00:08:15,841 --> 00:08:20,771 I wanted to talk to a bigger retailer to understand what the impact has been 154 00:08:20,781 --> 00:08:25,686 on them and the way that they market their business when they are faced with 155 00:08:25,686 --> 00:08:28,986 a customer that has a real lack of trust. 156 00:08:29,716 --> 00:08:32,336 I wanted to reach out to Passenger Clothing. 157 00:08:32,536 --> 00:08:34,906 Passenger Clothing is an outdoor clothing brand. 158 00:08:35,346 --> 00:08:36,996 They are fast growth. 159 00:08:37,006 --> 00:08:42,856 They are mostly e-commerce, and they have popped up in the Times 100 fastest growing 160 00:08:42,866 --> 00:08:45,216 UK companies for three years in a row. 161 00:08:45,393 --> 00:08:49,323 I sent them over some questions via email, and I got this response 162 00:08:49,423 --> 00:08:51,483 from their CEO, Jon Lane. 163 00:08:51,783 --> 00:08:54,983 And what he talked about, I think, is really important lesson 164 00:08:54,983 --> 00:08:56,333 for us all to keep in mind. 165 00:08:56,343 --> 00:09:00,253 He said that, "Transparency is really important to us and to our customers." 166 00:09:00,813 --> 00:09:04,923 He says, "We currently have over 50,000 independent reviews on Trustpilot. 167 00:09:04,973 --> 00:09:09,613 We also have over 65,000 reviews on our website to help customers make 168 00:09:09,753 --> 00:09:14,053 informed purchasing decisions." And so I think this is a really good reminder 169 00:09:14,053 --> 00:09:16,053 that social proof is really important. 170 00:09:16,063 --> 00:09:19,563 And these big retailers, they are obviously collecting so 171 00:09:19,563 --> 00:09:23,013 many more testimonials and reviews than a smaller retailer. 172 00:09:23,303 --> 00:09:26,013 But it's interesting to see how they're really focusing on this because it 173 00:09:26,033 --> 00:09:27,743 helps them answer that question. 174 00:09:27,743 --> 00:09:32,093 If somebody comes across an ad for Passenger Clothing, they're able to go 175 00:09:32,093 --> 00:09:35,683 and cross-reference that with a really deep bank of reviews to understand 176 00:09:35,693 --> 00:09:37,623 that this is a genuine business. 177 00:09:38,153 --> 00:09:41,153 But then I thought what was interesting was really how they approach their social 178 00:09:41,153 --> 00:09:42,683 media and their community building. 179 00:09:42,693 --> 00:09:46,913 He says, "We live for offline community moments, meeting our customers where they 180 00:09:46,913 --> 00:09:51,863 play. Our strong social content strategy ensures we capture behind-the-scenes 181 00:09:51,863 --> 00:09:55,693 moments. Our founder, Rich, features quite heavily to give our customers a 182 00:09:55,693 --> 00:09:57,923 sense of the people behind the brand." 183 00:09:58,353 --> 00:10:02,093 So Passenger aren't trying to prove as much that they're human. 184 00:10:02,243 --> 00:10:06,383 They're simply documenting the fact that they are, which feels quite different. 185 00:10:06,653 --> 00:10:10,333 They're almost deliberately creating these offline moments that they can then 186 00:10:10,333 --> 00:10:15,423 capture and share online to prove that they are real, to show the behind the 187 00:10:15,423 --> 00:10:19,313 scenes, to show the people behind the brand, and basically to put in a heck of 188 00:10:19,313 --> 00:10:24,653 a lot more effort and energy than any of these spoof ghost websites are putting in. 189 00:10:24,653 --> 00:10:27,533 So there's this whole bank of images as well as all those reviews. 190 00:10:27,803 --> 00:10:31,603 There's all of this proof and documentation that they are in fact human 191 00:10:31,603 --> 00:10:37,270 beings behind this business. Something else to keep in mind that was an interesting 192 00:10:37,270 --> 00:10:39,440 side note to this whole investigation. 193 00:10:39,450 --> 00:10:43,410 Most retailers think trust signals exist for customers, and clearly, as we've 194 00:10:43,410 --> 00:10:47,690 seen from the Bazaarvoice research, that it is really, really important that 195 00:10:47,780 --> 00:10:52,747 the customers are able to see and prove that to themselves that you are human. 196 00:10:52,957 --> 00:10:56,137 But increasingly, these trust signals are also for AI. 197 00:10:56,507 --> 00:10:59,927 This was the point in my interview with Doug Straton when I stopped thinking 198 00:10:59,927 --> 00:11:04,187 specifically about these ghost stores and started thinking about what trust means 199 00:11:04,247 --> 00:11:06,497 in the future for independent retailers. 200 00:11:07,467 --> 00:11:11,537 Once the product is out there in the environment, people trust other people, or 201 00:11:11,537 --> 00:11:13,086 what they perceive to be other people. 202 00:11:13,106 --> 00:11:16,543 And so what we find, which is interesting now in the age of 203 00:11:16,543 --> 00:11:20,673 AI, is that AI, of course, is now referencing human-sourced data, and 204 00:11:20,673 --> 00:11:24,223 if you look at some of the job titles inside of some of the AI platforms, 205 00:11:24,573 --> 00:11:28,862 they specifically call it out — vice president of human-sourced data. 206 00:11:29,488 --> 00:11:32,648 They want the AIs to, of course, reflect the truth, because if 207 00:11:32,648 --> 00:11:35,338 they don't, and people think they're all hallucinations and 208 00:11:35,338 --> 00:11:39,727 nonsense, then they will lose the credibility and therefore their user base. 209 00:11:39,728 --> 00:11:40,827 So you've got two things. 210 00:11:40,867 --> 00:11:43,217 You've got people trust other people, and now you have AI 211 00:11:43,217 --> 00:11:44,815 that trusts other people. 212 00:11:45,103 --> 00:11:48,493 And that combination has been very fortunate, obviously, 213 00:11:48,493 --> 00:11:51,403 for us because that's literally the core of our business. 214 00:11:51,403 --> 00:11:56,983 So we're now becoming a place, or a service, that allows 215 00:11:57,323 --> 00:12:00,393 shoppers and consumers to engage with products, but through the 216 00:12:00,393 --> 00:12:03,633 voice of consumers and shoppers that have used or bought those products. 217 00:12:03,921 --> 00:12:07,591 And AI and AI agents are also picking up that same information more and 218 00:12:07,591 --> 00:12:10,651 more and more and using that to actually surface the products and 219 00:12:10,651 --> 00:12:14,591 then ultimately to recommend the products, which creates a really 220 00:12:14,591 --> 00:12:17,657 interesting dynamic. It's better to be lucky than to be great, you know? 221 00:12:17,657 --> 00:12:19,776 We have a really good product, and we have had. 222 00:12:20,152 --> 00:12:23,342 But now it's a new era, and we're lucky enough to be one of 223 00:12:23,342 --> 00:12:27,482 those types of companies that is in a good position because trust is in 224 00:12:27,482 --> 00:12:29,622 demand, and authenticity is in demand. 225 00:12:30,734 --> 00:12:35,304 AI models, agentic AI, are increasingly looking at citations, backlinks, 226 00:12:35,344 --> 00:12:39,593 reviews, structured information and human- generated content to assess 227 00:12:39,743 --> 00:12:41,933 whether or not your business is reliable. 228 00:12:42,265 --> 00:12:45,725 So citations, backlinks, whatever they can 229 00:12:45,905 --> 00:12:48,765 essentially hoover up, or whatever's being fed to them directly, because 230 00:12:48,765 --> 00:12:50,175 we're starting to do that too. 231 00:12:50,185 --> 00:12:52,845 Because that gives a robust data set to work with. 232 00:12:52,925 --> 00:12:53,265 Yeah. 233 00:12:53,407 --> 00:12:56,197 This is incredibly relevant for small businesses. 234 00:12:56,627 --> 00:13:00,147 You need to think about not just how to get the customers to trust you, but how 235 00:13:00,197 --> 00:13:04,687 that trust is also going to filter into this new wave of agentic AI models that 236 00:13:04,697 --> 00:13:08,617 may be searching and shopping directly from you on the customer's behalf. 237 00:13:08,857 --> 00:13:10,857 They want to make sure that they're surfacing really 238 00:13:10,857 --> 00:13:12,407 good quality results as well. 239 00:13:13,327 --> 00:13:16,197 If you're listening to this podcast, you may think to yourself, "Well, this feels 240 00:13:16,197 --> 00:13:19,657 quite overwhelming. I posted a reel about this on Instagram, and somebody said, "You 241 00:13:19,657 --> 00:13:22,757 know, on top of everything else I've got to do, I've now got to prove I'm human. 242 00:13:22,767 --> 00:13:26,507 How is that fair?" And it can feel unfair, and it can feel like an additional burden. 243 00:13:26,517 --> 00:13:32,048 But I think the fundamental question to ask yourself is just 244 00:13:32,058 --> 00:13:35,748 start by saying, “What do people see when they search for me? 245 00:13:35,788 --> 00:13:38,298 Can they see who I am, where I'm based? 246 00:13:38,458 --> 00:13:40,178 Can they see genuine customer reviews? 247 00:13:40,428 --> 00:13:43,318 Can they see behind the scenes, real video, consistent 248 00:13:43,328 --> 00:13:45,178 branding, active social media?" 249 00:13:45,288 --> 00:13:47,588 Doesn't mean you have to be posting every day, but is it 250 00:13:47,588 --> 00:13:49,398 at least updated once a week? 251 00:13:49,797 --> 00:13:53,747 Can they see mentions elsewhere online about me and my business? 252 00:13:53,777 --> 00:13:55,357 Because here's the reality. 253 00:13:55,357 --> 00:13:57,707 Five years ago, we optimised our websites for Google. 254 00:13:58,087 --> 00:14:01,457 Today, we optimise them for sceptical customers, and tomorrow we'll be 255 00:14:01,487 --> 00:14:03,737 optimising them for AI agents. 256 00:14:04,257 --> 00:14:06,717 So this is the key thing here. 257 00:14:06,717 --> 00:14:09,867 Trust is in demand, and authenticity is in demand. 258 00:14:10,147 --> 00:14:13,147 The good news for independent retailers is that authenticity is 259 00:14:13,147 --> 00:14:14,987 one thing that you already have. 260 00:14:15,257 --> 00:14:18,577 The challenge now is making sure that people and increasingly 261 00:14:18,627 --> 00:14:20,737 AI can actually see it. 262 00:14:21,407 --> 00:14:22,677 Thank you so much for listening. 263 00:14:22,677 --> 00:14:24,027 I hope you enjoyed today's episode. 264 00:14:24,027 --> 00:14:27,177 Why not head over to Instagram at Resilient Retail Club and let me know 265 00:14:27,197 --> 00:14:28,587 what you thought about the episode? 266 00:14:29,027 --> 00:14:31,617 And of course, if you like, follow or subscribe, you'll be the first 267 00:14:31,617 --> 00:14:34,817 to know about each new episode when it's released on a Thursday morning. 268 00:14:34,877 --> 00:14:35,747 See you next week.